The Competition Superintendence (CS) of El Salvador jointly with the Regulatory Unit for Public Procurement carried out a training program for over 100 public procurement officials. The goal was to help officials identify barriers to accessing public procurement processes and detect bid rigging. Bid rigging involves competitors manipulating bids to determine the winner, increasing costs for the state. The training taught techniques to enforce the Competition and Public Procurement Manual and identify signs of bid rigging. This program aims to promote cooperation between procurement officials and the CS to apply competition law and policy.

1. “The CS must work
in cooperation and
coordination with the
PPOs in order for
them to prevent and
detect bid rigging
and provide the CS
with the necessary
information for the
beginning of
preliminary
investigations or of a
administrative
sanctioning
proceeding, as the
case may be”,
asserted
Francisco Diaz
Rodriguez,
Competition
Superintendent.
Press Release C. 05-13
El Salvador, March 15
th
, 2013.
CS trains public procurement officers in detecting
anticompetitive bids
The Competition Superintendence (CS) jointly with the Regulatory Unit for Public Procurement (in
Spanish, Unidad Normativa de Adquisiciones y Contrataciones, “UNAC”, its acronym in El Salvador) of
the Ministry of Finance, with the support of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
(UNCTAD), concluded today a training program for more than one hundred public procurement
officials in the prevention of anticompetitive practices in the Public Administration´s purchases and
acquisitions.
The CS jointly with the Regulatory Unit for Public Procurement carried out a training
program for public procurement officials to contribute in the identification of
unnecessary barriers to have access to public procurement processes, as well as in
the detection of bid rigging in said procedures in order to insure the execution of the
aforementioned processes under competition conditions and more efficiency in public
expenditure.
Through bid rigging, competitors in a public tender fraudulently manipulate the offers
filed, in order to determine who will win the procurement process. These conducts
are prohibited by the Salvadoran Competition Law (CL); they distort the Public
Administration´s purchases and acquisitions; increase the prices paid for the
acquired goods and services, damaging the market against the efficient use of the
State´s resources.
The above cited training program which began on March 11
th
and finalized today,
was aimed for than one hundred heads of the public procurement offices (PPOs) of
the Public Administration, local governments, and autonomous institutions; and was
carried out as part of the Program: Strengthening Institutions and Capacities in
Competition and Consumer Protection Policies”, (COMPAL II).
The participating public procurement officials were divided according to the size and
type of institution to which each one belonged to. The first day was dedicated to
autonomous institutions; the second to the local governments of Santa Ana,
Soyapango, Ahuachapán, Santa Tecla, amongst others; the third day to national hospitals of the country; and the
last day to ministries and institutions that report considerable volume of purchases, such as: the Ministry of
Health, the Ministry of Education, and Hydroelectric Executive Commission of the Lempa River (in Spanish,
Comisión Ejecutiva Hidroeléctrica del Río Lempa, “CEL”), amongst others.
The CS presented to the participants, in a practical and participative manner, the techniques on how to enforce
the Competition and Public Procurement Manual which contains the tools to prevent bid rigging, to identify alert
signs of said heinous conducts and of the procedures to denounce them.

2. Furthermore, this training program helped the assistants develop the necessary abilities and capacities for them
to correctly interpret and apply competition legislation regarding public procurement processes, as well as to
promote permanent communication amongst the UNAC, the PPOs, and the CS.
About bid rigging
This type of agreements attack the competitive process in the free market, being the State the principal victim,
since their existence prevents the State from acquiring better quality goods and services at lower prices. Said
agreements are expressly forbidden by the CL: “Art. 25.- Anticompetitive practices among competitors are
prohibited, amongst others, the following:
c) Fix or limit prices at auctions or in any other form bidding private or public, national or
international, with the exception of the joint bids submitted by economic agents that are clearly identified as
such in the documents submitted by the bidders”.
Background
In 2009, the CS sanctioned four travel agencies for bid rigging in public procurement processes carried out by the
Ministry of Economy and by the Salvadoran Tourism Corporation, having agreed on the commissions to be
charged for issuing airplane tickets. The fines totaled US$21,325.50.
That same year, the CS launched its manual “Detecting and Preventing Bid Rigging in Public Procurement
Processes”, to guide public procurement officers on how to prevent and detect rid rigging or fraud in public
procurement procedures in El Salvador.
Recently in February 2013, the CS sanctioned two companies for bid rigging in a public procurement procedure
carried out by the National Administration of Aqueducts and Sewage System (ANDA, its acronym in El Salvador).